Trevor Wilson founded Caboodle Books T/A Authors Abroad in 2008. As an experienced teacher both in UK and international schools, he was well placed to understand the impact a visiting author, particularly one who had books to sign, could have on children in schools across the globe. Starting with one author, the roster was quickly expanded, and now stands at 200+ brilliant authors, poets, illustrators and storytellers, all listed on our website: authorsabroad.com. Trevor’s vision and drive has underpinned the business for over 15 years, and the team he has built are all committed to continuing his good work!
Authors Abroad has three main areas to its business, these being AIM High, UK bookings, and Overseas bookings. The AIM High division, formerly known as Able Writers, was set up in 2011, when we joined forces with its founder, Brian Moses. Originally designed as a dedicated school day with an expert author to develop writing skills for a gifted and talented group of 30 Primary students, the model has been expanded to include Maths and Science events, and since the pandemic we have also offered “catch up” days and trialled the model in secondary schools too. AIM High days rely on successful and committed host schools and neighbouring guest schools, and we are always looking for new host schools – so please contact Laura Bolton for more information.
The UK bookings team led by former school librarian Yvonne Lang has seen a welcome return to in-person author visits, and whilst World Book Week and World Book Day remain a key literary focus for schools across the UK, Yvonne and her team have identified a number of other key dates through the academic calendar, such as National Poetry Day in early October, and Environment Day in early June. Yvonne also receives many approaches from authors and poets asking to join Authors Abroad, and although we can only take on a small number of new people each year, we are always looking for exciting new talent.
One of our strongest suits is now undoubtedly poetry. Not only do we have a growing number of very talented performance, rap, hip-hop, beat-box and slam poets on our books, but in conjunction with former Birmingham Poet Laureate Spoz (Giovanni Esposito), we have rolled out a series of Poetry Slam events across the country to great effect, and so far in 7 different regions. These involve a dedicated day at a school and culminate in inter-school finals every March and April. Even the shyest and most reluctant students are inspired by the medium of poetry, and we are now looking to set up CPD poetry workshops for teachers as well.
Our name, Authors Abroad, would suggest that we also send many of our acts overseas, which of course we do. The pandemic stopped us in our tracks, as it was just not possible to fly our authors to different parts of the world. However, I am pleased to say that, whilst virtual visits continue to have their place in the overseas market, in-person visits are definitely back in vogue. This term alone will see our acts visit a range of far-flung countries including Brazil, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Oman, Senegal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Qatar and Uganda, to name but a few – it really is heartening to see the world opening up again, and to receive amazing testimonials from international school librarians whose schools and students have been starved of the creative inspiration that an in-person author visit provides.
Finally, you might also be wondering what Caboodle Books is. Caboodle Books is in all our staff emails, and quite simply is the name of our own publishing imprint. We describe ourselves as a niche publisher, which means that we generally only publish for authors and poets we work with regularly in schools. Notable recent publications include Nicky Singer’s Island, Karl Nova’s CLiPPA-winning Rhythm and Poetry, Steve Davies’ The Ancient Egypt Sleepover, and in line with our poetic strong suit, we have also recently published new books for Chris White, Christian Foley, Emily Lauren-Jones, Kimba Bush and Rob Bradley.
What is the best way to get in touch with the Authors Abroad team, and why not sign up for our twice termly and free newsletter? – please email us at: general@caboodlebooks.co.uk
Robin Snook
Robin Snook joined the Authors Abroad team in 2015 to manage and grow the overseas side of the business, having a business background in the print industry, and specifically in sales and marketing. Robin is also a keen sportsman, and during the pandemic he realised the dream of publishing two non-fiction sporting titles.
Children's Poetry Summit 
You must be logged in to post a comment.